


Saffron

by FindingFeathersSeanchaidh



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Links to Heart of Magic universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15887067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingFeathersSeanchaidh/pseuds/FindingFeathersSeanchaidh
Summary: A new mystery takes the team to Prague and, for a while, it looks like fences are being mended between Jacob and Cassandra; but trust, like an ill-baked clay pot, is all too often shattered.The dynamics of the Episode "And the Heart of Darkness" always felt off to me. Usually, when something feels off in a story, my brain tries to fill in the blanks. This short story is the result.While very definitely placed between the STEM fair and the Heart of Darkness episodes of the series, mostly, this also links with and prequels the storyverse of The Heart of Magic.





	1. Mysterious Murders

"Present for you!" Jacob called out as he walked through the doors of the annex office that morning. The room was empty. He looked around in confusion. She was usually always here by now. Then he remembered why he had bought the present in the first place and headed off to the lab.

Sure enough, there she was, pouring over a series of lines on an intricately detailed map of somewhere.

"Present for you," he repeated, raising the small package in the air as she looked round. "Think fast!"

"What?" Cassandra frowned, then utterly failed to catch the small, flat packet. "Oh! Ow!"

"It means catch, Cassie," Jacob smiled, trying not to laugh. How could someone so good at physics be so inept at catching stuff! He walked over, picked up the item and placed it on the map, then turned the redhead toward him, gently lifting her hand away from where the edge of the projectile had caught her on the head. "Come here, let me see. You okay?"

"I've had worse headaches," she shrugged, staring at her hands, now resting on his chest while he ran his fingers through her hair, checking her head for damage. "Please tell me it's not anything breakable. I'm so sorry I dropped it."

"You're adorable," he grinned, kissing the spot on her head where the gift had made contact. "I throw a box of highlighters at you and you apologise to me!"

"Ooh! Yellow ones?" Cassandra's smile brightened and she looked up.

"Yes, yellow ones," he smiled back, letting his hand fall to her waist. "I checked the drawer after we got back from Chicago. You're almost out."

"I know! I didn't even think to check until this morning," she rolled her eyes. "I just had so much on my mind after..." Cassandra shook her head, retrieved her hands and turned back to the map. "I'm nearly finished this, by the way," she blurted, waving her hands at the map and focussing on the lines drawn across it.

"I know, Morgan le Fay, right?" Jacob said at the same instant, stepping back and turning to lean back against the desk, his arms folded very definitely in front of him.

"What?"

"What?"

"Ahem!"

Jacob and Cassandra spun round to the door. Ezekiel was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with one hand on his chin and the other tucked under his opposite arm. He was watching them with a slight grin.

"You're here early, Jones," said Stone. "What is it?"

"Baird sent me to find you," replied the thief. "Well, she went to find you Stone. She sent me to find Cassandra. Should have known you'd be... nearby..."

"Get to the point, Ezekiel," sighed Cassandra. "Why are you both looking for us?"

"Oh, didn't I mention?" Ezekiel blinked innocently. "We have a case. Can't think why I didn't say so sooner. Must have got... distracted."

With a smirk, Jones vanished.

"How long do you think he was standing there?" Cassandra frowned.

"How should I know: you're the one who was facing him," Jacob grumbled.

"Yes, but I wasn't really..." Cassandra's voice tailed off as her brain caught up with what she had been about to admit. She turned back to the map and pressed her hands into the desk.

"Remind me not to give him a warning if I ever plan on throwing something at him," said Jacob, leaning back against the desk again and looking over at the empty doorway.

"Unlike me, he probably wouldn't need one!"

"No, he'd probably steal whatever I threw his way before it even got to him! Damn thing's probably vanish in mid air if he's around," Jacob admitted, smiling as the corners of Cassandra's mouth began to turn upwards again. "Come on, let's go see what's so urgent." He put his hand over hers and felt her jump in surprise. "Leave the map for now. It is possible to focus on something too hard, you know."

They made their way back to the office side by side. Stone ignored the grin on Jones' face as he held the door open for Cassandra, then joined her beside Baird and Jenkins at the clippings book.

"What's today's mystery?" Stone asked, still ignoring Ezekiel.

"A murder mystery it appears, Mr Stone," replied Jenkins, pointing a finger at the scattered reports on the page. "Although beyond that, I'm afraid you'll have to tell us. Modern languages were never my strong point."

Stone looked down at the page. The chalk outline of a body in one picture, the staring eyes of an actual body in another, and the police tape marking out an area around a house all gave the case the hallmarks of a murder. Only by reading, and translating for the others as he did so, did he discover not one but three murders.

"All in Prague?" Baird asked, frowning. Stone nodded. "Then why show up here? Surely the authorities in Prague will be dealing with it?"

"Maybe they can't," Stone shrugged. "If it's something in our field, not theirs, where else would it appear."

"Magical murders?" Baird looked unconvinced.

"Wouldn't be the first," shrugged Cassandra. "But where do we start? There has to be more linking them than just the city."

"Maybe it's the golem, back for round two!" Jones quipped, his voice filled with sarcasm.

"People are dead, Jones," Baird frowned, looking over at the younger man. By the time she looked back to the trio by the book, Stone and Jenkins were exchanging very worried looks. "I hate it when you do that!"

"What's a golem?" Cassandra piped up, looking up at the two men on either side of her.

"Dangerous," said Jenkins, his brow wrinkling in consternation. "Very dangerous."

"Gonna need a little more than that, gentlemen," said Baird, folding her arms. "A lot more."

Stone sighed and walked over to a shelf, running his finger along the books until he found the one he wanted, then bringing it back to the desk and opening it to a page.

"I was looking at this just last week," he said as they gathered round. "It's a history of Prague and some of it's notable characters. Emperor Rudolf the second collected a lot of artwork. Most of it's still on display at Prague Castle, and I mean, the castle itself..."

"Golems, Stone," Baird reminded him.

"Right," he said, flicking through a couple of pages of pictures. He stopped by a photograph of a small house with a large, vaguely humanoid statue outside it. On the opposite page was a woodcut print of a man, taller than any other in the picture, throttling another. There were three Jewish letters visible on the tall man's forehead. "This is the legend of the golem of Prague," he continued. "It tells about a rabbi who, along with two helpers, created a man out of the clay of the river and brought him to life with sacred words. The man was a golem, the golem. He was called Joseph, and he protected the Jewish community from attacks on it. The story goes that he got out of control and started attacking people randomly, so the Rabbi deactivated him and hid him in the attic of the old-new synagogue."

"Old-new?" Cassandra frowned.

"It was new when they built it. Now it's old," Jacob replied. "The attic's been explored many times, though. No trace of the golem was ever found."

"How did you know?" Baird asked Jones, frowning at the thief, who hadn't bothered coming over to look in the book.

"Like Stone says: Prague Castle has some of the most expensive artwork in the world, and it is so easy to get around you just have to visit it!"

"What did you steal?" Baird growled. "On second thoughts: don't tell me. I really don't want to know!"

"Probably for the best," grinned Jones.

"If it is Rabbi Loew's Golem," said Jenkins, "it is not only dangerous, but also incredibly difficult to spot. If memory serves, Joseph was not the near shapeless lump of clay most people think of, but almost indistinguishable from an ordinary human being. He was taller than average, but that is hardly a rare thing these days. He could not speak, but again: that's not a characteristic confined to non-human entities. He will be difficult to find and, especially, difficult to disable."

"Yes, about that..."

"Golems were said to be brought to life by sacred words," explained Stone. "They would either have the word inscribed on their foreheads, like it is in the print there, or they would have it on a scroll or tablet that was inserted in their head or mouth, called a shem. The only way to deactivate them was to remove the shem, or remove a letter from the word on their forehead to change it from truth to death."

"I'm not one for word puzzles," said Cassandra, "but that doesn't..."

"Hebrew letter," said Jacob. "The golems are a Jewish legend. The word for truth in Hebrew is only one letter different to the word for death."

"Oh."

"If you are investigating a murder, or series of murders, on the opposite side of the globe, you will need a base of operations over there," said Jenkins. "You should pack a bag each. I will endeavour to arrange accommodation and transport while you do so. I trust you will not be needing the services of a translator?"

"I think we'll stick with Stone," said Baird. She looked round at her charges. "Everyone pack a bag and meet back here. Pack light: we don't know what we might need, but I'm sure Jenkins can get us anything essential that we find we don't have with us. Any questions?"

"I have one," said Cassandra. "I've never actually looked for Prague on a map, but I think I've seen it recently. Where exactly is it?"

Jacob flipped the book he was still holding to the inside of the front cover. There was a map of Europe with a drawing of a round-ended map pin pointing to the city in question. Cassandra scrutinised the map, then nodded.

"I have seen it recently," she said. "Wait here."

Disappearing out of the room, she returned moments later carrying the map she had been working on. She laid it out on the desk and pointed to the city's name emblazoned in the top corner, in an area less highlighted than the one in the centre of the map.

"This is a map of Slovakia," she explained. "I've been working on the ley lines shown in it. There's a problem here," she pointed to a spot in the lower portion of the map, diagonally opposite the corner pointing to Prague. "It's like they're... untethered. Like they should be attached to something and they're not."

"That sounds like they're broken," said Jenkins, frowning. "The sudden influx of raw magic could do that. It would be like pouring cold water onto a hot sheet of glass. It can't take the sudden change and it cracks."

"What should we do about them?" Baird asked.

"Like Miss Cillian says: they ought to be attached to something and they're not," Jenkins shrugged. "We simply need to reattach them."

"And I take it you have a plan for that?"

"Of course," the old man drew himself up to his full height, as if the very suggestion that he might not have such an idea was a sheer travesty of justice. "I shall explain the details to Miss Cillian while you are all busy packing."

"Who's packing Cassandra's bags?" Ezekiel cried out from the far side of the desk.

"I already have a bag packed," said Cassandra sheepishly. "In case."

"In case of wh..." Ezekiel stopped when Cassandra tapped her head. "Oh. Right."

"Go, noisy people!" Jenkins shooed the other three out of the office. "The sooner you are gone, the sooner you are back and the sooner I can wave you off to Europe for a few days of blissful peace. Do try not to get murdered by any golems while you're there: it would make me feel dreadfully guilty for at least a day!"


	2. Midnight Taxi Rides

By the time Stone, Jones and Baird returned, Cassandra and Jenkins were ready and waiting by the door. There was a bag on Cassandra's chair, and another on the floor beside it, and the map was unrolled on the desk beside one of Cassandra's own making, it's lines highlighted in every colour of the rainbow but red. Most of them were yellow.

"I have managed to acquire four single rooms in a reasonably priced hotel in the city centre," said Jenkins, looking up from the map. "Miss Cillian has the address. The manager speaks English, as do a few of the staff, and there is always someone on the desk due to the numerous late check-ins they get from late flights and tourists taking road trips around Europe. It should suit our needs."

"Then we get to go on our own mini road trip!" Cassandra grinned.

"Golem first, road trip later!" Baird replied sternly, but not too sternly. "And I'm driving!"

"Shotgun!" Stone called out. When they all looked at him he pointed at Jones. "I ain't sitting in the back with him for hours on end!"

"Dude, you cannot call shotgun before we have even got the car!" Jones complained. "And besides: that's just mean. I'll have you know I'm perfectly capable of irritating the hell out of you no matter where we end up sitting."

"Yeah, I'm just less likely to punch you if you're out of reach!"

"Like you could catch me!"

"Hey!" Baird yelled. "Murders! Dead people! Golem! Move!"

Still grumbling, the boys allowed themselves to be shepherded to the door. Stone led the way through into a deserted train station, followed by Baird, Jones and Cassandra. The map was rolled up and sticking out the top of the second bag, and Baird took it from the younger woman's hands and swung it onto her own back. The night was cool and quiet. Prague was eight hours behind Portland, putting them right in the wee small hours of the morning. Even the ever present city traffic had died down to the occasional car or lorry. It took a clear ten minutes before a cab pulled into the station's taxi rank. Ezekiel was first in the front passenger door, while Jacob held the back seat door open for Cassie and Baird put the bags in the boot. By the time the Guardian was done, the only seat free was the one behind the driver. She climbed in with a sigh. Stone was already leaning forward giving the driver directions from the centre seat and soon they were off, winding their way through the ancient and modern streets of the beautiful city of Prague.

"So many different buildings!" Baird commented as they turned a corner. "How old is this place?"

"Founded in the ninth century," said Stone beside her. "It sure has a lot of history behind, and below, those walls. Not much of it visible now though. Not from that far back, anyway."

"When the golem was supposed to have been made," said Cassandra from the other side of Stone, "in the late sixteenth century, Prague was in it's second golden age. It was called Magic Prague and it was visited by famous scientists of the era, like Brahe and Kepler. Kepler. Kepler," the eyes unfocused. "Laws of planetary motion. Every orbit is an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. Every orbit sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time. The square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube of its semi major axis. Cubes. Cubes have six sides. Six is indigo. Six cubed is three hundred and ninety six. Yellow and indigo. Indigo dye. Chemical formula C sixteen, H twelve, N two, O two. Natural source _Indigofera tinctoria_..."

"Cassie," Jacob's voice cut through the rambling. "Focus."

"...used to stain jeans. Blue jeans. Blue Jean was a song by David Bowie. They always let you down when you need them. Let me down. Mom and Dad let me down. Let me go. Ruined project. Their project. Broken. I'm broken..."

"No, no, no, Cassie! Focus!" Jacob turned her face towards him. There was blood dripping from her nose. "Dammit! Baird! Gimme a tissue or something! Cassie, listen! Focus on something else. Anything else. Different memory. Something! Hell, focus on me if you have to!"

"Henge. We were at the henge. Our first day. I fell. You caught me. You held my hand. Helped me focus. I could smell summer. Summer! I smell summer!"

The hotel wasn't far from the station, so they would have no problem finding transport or, for that matter, anything else. From one conversation with the taxi driver while Baird was helping Cassandra out of the cab, still holding a tissue to her nose, Stone managed to get directions to the Old-New Synagogue, the cemetery where Rabbi Loew's tomb could be found and the streets where the murders took place. The cheerful driver thought it highly amusing, and utterly believable, that the crazy Americans would come all this way to search for the lost Golem. People did it all the time! Especially when some unexplained crime was committed! And please tell your friend he will have to be faster than that to escape the eyes of a Czech taxi driver, and much faster if he wishes to keep the takings he just stole!

Stone grabbed Cassandra's bag as well as his own and looked round. Baird, carrying both her own bag and the bag with the map and whatever else Jenkins had sent with them, was already leading the way into the hotel. Ezekiel, having been made to return the takings by Stone during the course of the conversation, had taken charge of Cassandra and was leading her away from the cab with the tissue still pressed to her nose. He followed them into the hotel lobby and joined Baird at the desk. The manager's English was clear enough though.

"Here," said Baird, handing him a pair of room keys. "You and Cassandra take the two on the second floor, well, first floor here. Jones and I will take the two on the top floor."

"These are adjoining rooms, Baird," replied Stone. "Wouldn't it be more... I don't know, suitable, for you and Cassandra to have them? Or Jones and I..."

"Adjoining doors lock on both sides, Stone," said Baird with an amused look. "The lift isn't working. I don't want Cassandra climbing all those stairs, especially not with a bloody nose. And I want to keep an eye on Jones myself, as far as it is ever possible to do so."

"Okay," he said, still looking unconvinced.

"Just go get her settled where she can at least get cleaned up. And get some ice on that nose if it keeps bleeding!" Baird picked up the other two keys and headed over to where Cassandra and Ezekiel were sitting. "Okay, Jones: top floor. Start walking. You and me: last two rooms on the right!"

"Please say we're not on the top floor!" Cassandra mumbled through the tissue.

"Still bleeding?" Jacob asked. She pulled a face. "Point taken. We're just one flight up. Not far. I've got your bag here. Need a hand up?"

"It's just a nosebleed," she replied, getting to her feet without difficulty. "Lead the way. I'll follow you. Just don't rush off anywhere."

Their rooms were near the stairs, but tucked around a corner where the movements of other guests were less easily heard, one room looking straight up the short corridor, the other beside it opposite the wall through to the stairs. Jacob opened the end door first and Cassandra made a bee line for the sink in the nearby en suite.

"I think it's stopping," she called as Jacob deposited her bag on the bed.

"Does that happen often," he called back, "or is this because of those damn pens this morning?"

"This is not your fault," Cassandra reassured him. "It happens occasionally. Sometimes nothing for ages, then one day it'll just start bleeding. It'll keep happening for a day or two, but nothing like this bad."

"A day or two."

"A few days," she shrugged. "A week at the most."

"What triggers it?" Jacob asked, looking round as she came out of the bathroom, tissue free and looking like nothing had happened.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I've never really been able to spot a pattern. There's usually so much going on at the time, and I was never able to control the hallucinations before."

"You had a hard time controlling them there."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he reached out and took her hand. "You can't do anything about it. You don't have to apologise for that."

"I can't change the past either," she said, drawing her hand away. "I'm not apologising for that again, if that's what you mean."

"That's not what I meant," he said sharply. "Cassie, I..."

"Where does that door go," she frowned, changing the subject and walking away.

Jacob looked down and frowned. "It goes through to my room," he admitted. "It should have a bolt on either side apparently."

"Whose idea was that?" Cassandra wondered aloud.

"They only had four rooms left and Baird wanted to keep an eye on Jones," he explained, without turning round. "They took the top floor so you didn't have five flights to walk up."

"I'm not an invalid!"

"You could barely see where you were going!"

"Point taken."

Silence spread out in the room, filling each and every corner until it became stifling.

"I'll be next door," said Stone. "I'll unbolt the dividing door on my side. Just yell if you need anything."

"And you'll what? Break down the bolt on mine?"

"If you were in trouble, you know damn well I would. I did think maybe you'd consider unlocking it first though. At least if it wasn't urgent!"

XXXX

Ezekiel Jones did not like stairs. One or two flights at a time were okay. Five in a row, being hustled along by an army Colonel, were torture.

"Please tell me I can sleep for a few hours when we get there!" Jones groaned, turning another corner.

"Last flight, Jones, come on," said Baird, ushering the young man forward. "How can you think of sleep when it's nearly lunch time!"

"Back home it's nearly lunch time," he corrected her. "Here it's still the middle of the night!"

"Stop whining. We're here now. End of the corridor."

"I thought you said the last two rooms?"

"I did, and you're getting the last one. If you're planning on sneaking off anywhere, you'll have to go past my room to do it!"

"You are not my mother!"

"A blessing for which I am eternally grateful! Now keep walking!"

XXXX

Jacob let the door fall back behind him and threw his key down onto the bedside table nearby. He leant back against the door and let his head fall back. Maybe he should have chosen his words more carefully. Maybe he should have thought about that months ago.

There were times when Jacob Stone really wished he could go back and change the past.  
But wishing wouldn't make it so.

He threw his bag onto the bed on his left and walked to the door at the opposite end of the wall on his right. The bolt was a simple one. He lifted the handle and pushed it back with an audible rattle. There was an echoing rattle from the other side of the door. He let out a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding, and let his head and hand rest on the door.

XXXX

Cassandra was angry. She was angry at Baird for not even considering that she might be fit enough to climb as many stairs as Ezekiel. She was angry at Stone for reminding her just how much she did have to apologise for, would always have to apologise for. She was angry at her parents for letting her walk away and not fighting to keep her in their lives. She was angry at herself for having to rely on everyone else to help her because she couldn't control what went on in her own head. She was angry at her tumour for so many things. But most of all, she was angry at herself for daring to let her heart skip a beat whenever he was near. Of all the men in the world to start feeling an attraction to, didn't she just have to choose the one she couldn't have. The one with walls up so high she'd need to climb Everest just to see the top of them way up in the distance. The one who had straight up told her he would never trust her, and you couldn't fall for someone you didn't trust. Not really. Could you?

Lost in her thoughts, she unbolted the door through to his room. He might not trust her, but she did trust him. That far anyway. And if she did need him... She let her head fall forward to the door, resting it by her hand, her eyes closed, and silently cursed the terminal tumour that made her reliant on everyone else.


	3. Night-time Nosebleeds

Jacob Stone couldn't sleep. He was stretched out on the bed, boots kicked under the desk that ran the length of the adjoining wall with Cassandra's room, clothes thrown over the chair. A short phone call from Baird had told him the plan to reset everyone's body clocks to Prague time, but he didn't think that plan was going to be working any time soon! He'd heard about jet lag, but at least that involved a lengthy journey across each time zone in turn. He'd just jumped eight in a half hour! His phone said it was three thirty in the morning. His brain said it was eleven thirty and heading for noon. And it was refusing to switch off.

Every time he closed his eyes, he was replaying some damn stupid mistake he'd made. Sometimes it was Cassie in front of him, looking hurt, sometimes it was someone else. All the times he'd said or done the wrong thing. All the memories he wished he could go back and rewrite. But he couldn't. He couldn't change his past, or his mistakes, any more than she could change hers.

He got up and padded up and down the room in his bare feet. He should have brought a book. Any book. Reading was one of the few things that helped his brain focus. When his mind was scattered, darting from thought to thought and none of them ones he wanted to dwell on, reading was the one thing that could drag his thoughts together and point them in a single direction. Usually, anyway. It had been working less and less recently. He would pick up whatever book he had nearby and start reading, then his brain would spot something that reminded him exactly what he was trying so hard to avoid. Maybe it was the lingering scent of her perfume. Maybe it was a word she'd used that day, or a phrase. Maybe it was the treacherous thought at the back of his mind creeping up and telling him how much she would like to read that piece, or see that picture. She was everywhere. She filled his mind and heart until he ached to be near her, just to see her smile.

He sat down at the desk and dropped his head onto his folded arms. He had to get past this. They worked together. They worked well together, but it was still work. Falling for someone you worked with was never a good idea. It made things complicated. Especially if the object of your affection didn't feel the same way. And he was at least ninety percent sure she didn't, especially if that last exchange was anything to go by. He had let himself get swept up in the moment and believe there could be something more there. He had been deluding himself that she might feel something too. She obviously didn't. He had to get past this!

From the other side of the wall there was a noise. Mumbling. He raised his head and listened. Was she talking in her sleep? Was she asleep? Was she hallucinating again? Was she hallucinating in her sleep? Could she even do that? And if she could, what should he do about it? Should he do anything about it? If she was already lying down she wasn't exactly in danger of falling. What if her nose started bleeding again? She'd said that could happen, right?

There was no help for it. If he didn't check he'd lie awake the rest of the night worrying. There would be absolutely no chance of sleep. And if something did happen and he wasn't there...

He got up and opened the dividing door.

Peering nervously around the edge of the door, he looked over to the bed. Cassandra was asleep and lying on her back. At least she had her eyes closed, anyway, and the hands were up, moving invisible visions back and forth, so he guessed she was asleep. He crept into the room and sat on the edge of the bed, switching on the bedside lamp. Sure enough, a trickle of blood was starting to seep from her nose. He swore and looked around for tissues. He opened the top drawer of the bedside table and swore again.

"That's one heck of a lot of medication!"

There was a pocket pack of tissues in the drawer and he grabbed one. A stray hand batted his away and he had to immobilise it before he could catch the line of blood tracing its way down the side of her face.

"Cassandra, wake up," he called softly, keeping the hand nearest him locked in his own and brushing messy red hair out of the way with the other. "You're dreaming, Cassie. It's just a dream. Come on, now. Wake up." The free hand still flailed around and the muttering continued. "Come on, Cassie," he said, louder now. "Wake up! Get back in control of this. Change the memory. Go back to somewhere you know you can get out of. Summer. Go to summer!"

That seemed to work. He heard her murmur the word, saw the smile pass across her face and watched her relax back into sleep. The peace was broken when a paroxysm of coughing shook her. She was choking on her own blood. He rolled her towards him, onto her side, and slid down to kneel on the floor. He shook her and called her name until the eyes opened. Slowly they focused on him. The brow wrinkled as she took in his appearance.

"No shirt," she mumbled.

"I was trying to sleep," he reminded her.

"Did I wake you?" Cassandra frowned. "I..."

"I was still awake," he admitted. "I heard you rambling and came through to make sure you were okay. Your nose is still bleeding by the way."

"Oh," she took the tissue from him and sat up. "There's a basin under the sink in the en suite."

He hurried off and came back with a yellow basin. She took it with a nod of thanks.

"I've heard of talking in your sleep, but I didn't know you could hallucinate in it!" Jacob smiled.

"Neither did I," Cassandra shrugged. "I guess nobody's ever heard me before, or at least thought to try and wake me up."

"You came out of it before that," he replied. "If it hadn't been for the blood I would have just let you sleep, but once you stopped thrashing your head around you were choking, so..."

"You thought it best to wake me," she finished. "If I ever have hallucinated in my sleep before, it certainly hasn't caused any nosebleeds."

"At least you're okay now," he rose to go.

"Stay," she blurted out. "I mean, would you stay a while? If you're not too tired, that is. It's just, this is new. If you hadn't been here..."

"I'll be here," he said, sitting down again. "I wasn't tired in the first place."

"I'm always tired," Cassandra laughed. "You don't have to sit there like that, by the way. It can't be comfortable."

"Nah, I guess I could drag that chair over," he said, looking round the room.

"Don't be an idiot: this bed is huge. I think we can manage to sit side by side on it without getting in each other's way."

"Umm..."

"Oh, for goodness sake, Stone," Cassandra rolled her eyes. "I invited you on to the bed, not into it. Don't look like that!"

"Fine!" Jacob held up his hands in mock defeat and made his way to the other side of the bed.

"There's a blanket at the bottom of the bed if you're cold."

"It ain't that cold," he frowned. "If anything, it's too warm!"

"Really? I'm freezing!"

"You're always cold!"

"No, I'm not!" Cassandra frowned. "When was the last time I complained of being cold?"

"I mean you always feel cold," he replied, looking pointedly at his feet. "Whenever... Whenever I catch you, your skin feels cold. I just assumed you felt it and didn't say anything."

"Not that I've noticed," she mused. She felt the back of his hand against her forehead. "I'm not ill. Well, no more than usual, anyway."

"You are colder than usual though."

"I don't recall you pressing your hand to my forehead every time I get dizzy!"

"Okay," the hand slipped to her bare forearm. "Nope, no change."

"You're really warm," she said.

"You must have the heating in here up to max: the entire room is warm!"

"I was cold!"

He looked at her, silhouetted against the light from the table lamp, then edged over and drew her back against him. He heard her draw in a sharp breath, then felt her relax into him.

"You are a walking hot water bottle!" Cassandra commented.

"Actually I'm a sitting hot water bottle," he grinned, "but I take your point. How's the nose?"

"Slowing down I think."

"Good."

They sat in companionable silence for the next few minutes, until Cassandra announced her nosebleed had stopped. She dropped the tissue into the basin and placed it on the bedside table. She leant back again.

"You planning on getting back under those covers tonight?" Jacob asked her, trying not to grin.

"Will you stay?"

"Cassandra..."

"Just until I fall asleep," she added hurriedly. "Just... Just stay until I fall asleep."

"I am not your personal electric blanket."

"Please?"

He sighed, and let her draw his arms further around her. Soon enough, her breathing was steady and even again. His hands, however, were now inextricably interwoven with hers. There was no easy way out of her grasp without waking her again. Letting his head fall back, he gave up and closed his eyes.

XXXX

"Stone!" Baird yelled through the door to Stone's room. "Wake up and answer your phone, will you!"

The hammering on the door transferred itself to Cassandra's door and they woke to the sound of Cassandra's name being yelled.

"You're still here!" Cassandra hissed.

"You wouldn't let me go!" Jacob hissed back.

"You need to go back to your own room before..."

"I'll just say I was asleep. I didn't hear her."

"I meant before she gets Ezekiel to pick the locks!"

"I put the chain on mine."

"I didn't!"

"I'm going!"

Thirty seconds, and one very quietly closed dividing door, later, the two of them appeared at their respective room doors.

"Ezekiel is downstairs finishing off the breakfast buffet," said Eve with a decidedly straight face. "These walls are very thin. You two cannot whisper. And that is not why I gave you the adjoining rooms!"

"She had another nosebleed!"

"He fell asleep!"

"You wouldn't let go of my hands!"

"That wasn't an accusation!"

"Whatever," groaned Baird as the corridor corner filled with simultaneous excuses, explanations and arguments. "Just get dressed and meet us downstairs before all the food is gone. We've got a long day ahead."


	4. The Prague Cemetery

The hotel was easily within walking distance of the Old-New Synagogue, and the tomb of the rabbi that had first created the golem. Baird insisted their first stop was at the local police station, though, so there they went, Jacob playing translator once again.

As always seemed to happen, their usual cover story was accepted completely by local law enforcement and the officer on duty at the desk was only too happy to give them the details of the case that they already knew from the newspapers. He was not so easily forthcoming on anything else though. The four made their way back to the street and headed in the direction of the synagogue.

"Well, so much for that!" Stone grumbled. "Nothing."

"Oh ye of little faith!" Jones sighed, handing Baird his phone. "Some of us were up early enough to hear all of the plan, not just the abbreviated version!"

"Feel up to doing a bit more translating?" Baird asked, passing the phone to Stone. On the screen were the entire case files for the three murders.

"You stole the files?" Stone looked over at Jones incredulously. "When? How? We didn't get beyond the front desk!"

"The power of wi-fi, mate," Jones breezed. "Everything's stealable, especially data!"

"How much data?" Stone queried, flicking through the pages. Not all seemed to be from the murders.

"Well, you were never going to keep that guy talking long enough for me to find the files we needed," shrugged Jones. "So I just swiped the lot."

"You can fit their entire case histories onto a smart phone?" Cassandra frowned.

"Nah, they're in a secure cloud area I set up," replied the thief. "I can probably set up a translation algorithm too if you two would rather go back to catching up on your beauty sleep."

Behind the young man's back, two pairs of eyes glared at Baird. She held up her hands and shook her head.

"They don't tell us much more that we didn't know," growled Stone. "Some background on the victims and the medical reports. There's a few technical terms here I don't know, but the murders all do seem to have the same cause of death. The victims were all throttled. There are some close up photos of the injuries too. Looks like one hand went round the throat and just squeezed. Seems the hand print was easy to recover because the killer's hand appears to have been covered in fine mud or clay, but the police think they must have been wearing gloves because they couldn't get any fingerprints."

"Sure sounds like a golem to me!" Jones smirked.

"I ain't saying it is and I ain't saying it's not," said Stone. "I'm just saying we need to be sure that's what we're dealing with first."

"If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck..."

"Yeah, but Occam's razor ain't always the key to the right answer."

"Is anything ever simple with you?"

"Hey!"

"We should find the clay the golem is supposed to have been made from," suggested Cassandra. "If it's the same clay, then maybe we're on to something."

"Yeah, so long as it is the same clay," said Jones. "If it's not, then what? It doesn't rule out the possibility someone out there has magicked up another one. Even if it is, there's nothing to rule out someone repeating all of the rabbi's processes. If I wanted to make my own golem, that's exactly what I'd do! I mean, with all this free magic and those broken ley lines floating about, who knows what the good people of Prague are capable of!"

"Okay, fine," said Baird. "Cassandra, you and Jones go find this clay and answer that question. Stone, you're with me: we need to talk to people."

The three watched as Baird walked off in the direction of the synagogue without waiting for a reply. Jacob's gaze flicked back and forth between Baird and Cassandra.

"I'm fine," Cassandra told him. "Go."

She felt Ezekiel step up to her side as the others disappeared into the growing crowd.

"What the heck was that all about?"

"Apparently I hallucinate in my sleep now," she sighed. "He could hear me through the wall. He's just worried."

"You okay?"

"As much as ever," she smiled. "Come on. Let's go find this river."

XXXX

"Baird about this morning..."

"I really do not want to hear this story!" Eve cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"No, seriously, it's not what you think!" Stone insisted, catching up with the Colonel at last.

"Really, because I am struggling to come up with any innocent explanation for the conversation I overheard this morning!"

"Which is exactly why it's not what you think! I swear! I wouldn't... We wouldn't... We're not..."

"You're both adults. What you do in your own time is none of my..."

"She had a seizure! If someone hadn't been there she could have been in serious trouble. She was choking on her own blood, Eve!"

"What?" Baird stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"I was trying to!" Stone threw up his hands. "You kept assuming... Anyway, you know she probably wouldn't want you to know, but you have got to go easy on her! She's doing too much! Pushing herself too hard! If she has to keep using her synaesthesia, she's going to keep getting nosebleeds. At least that's how it seems. She said this happens, but she took a knock to the head this morning thanks to yours truly here and I don't think she'd tell me if it was because of that."

"Why not? Surely it's more worrying if it's the tumour?"

"Not if it's normal for the tumour," Jacob looked sheepish. "And I think she's... Well, I don't think... Look, we've had our differences, Cassandra and I, and I might have said some... stuff..."

"You told her you didn't trust her."

"Yeah, and I never quite got round to mentioning..."

"That you trust her now? And you think she's still trying to make up for it."

"Something like that."

"I'll talk to her about the nosebleeds, when I get a chance and you're not around," sighed Eve. "She'll be honest with me. She's probably being honest with you too, Stone. If you weren't too busy being an egotistical idiot you'd see that lying to someone isn't a sensible way to make that person trust you."

Baird turned and walked on. After a moment he followed her. A street later, something appeared to cross his mind.

"Wait a minute, how'd you know I'd told her I didn't trust her?" Stone asked, frowning over at the Guardian.

"Because she told me," she replied.

"What else did she tell you?"

"Just that," Eve looked round. "Why?"

"No reason," shrugged Stone, looking away. "Oh, look: there's the synagogue."

"Stop deflecting, Stone," Baird sighed. "If you don't want to tell me something, just say so."

"I'm not... It's a... How can you use a building to deflect a question? It doesn't do anything: it just sits there!"

"And yet, you still try!"

XXXX

Cassandra and Ezekiel looked down at the river mud below them. It wasn't clear where exactly along the river Vltava the rabbi had made the golem, but from what they could see, it certainly wasn't here.

"Are you sure?" Ezekiel looked sideways at Cassandra.

"I have a brain tumour and synaesthesia, Ezekiel, not a full chemical analysis lab complete with mass spectrometer, soil analysis kits and everything else a forensics laboratory would have."

"Do you need one?" Jones asked. "Because I'm reasonably certain I can get you one of those."

"Not even you can steal an entire laboratory, Ezekiel," Cassandra smiled over at him.

"Maybe not permanently, but for an hour or four..."

"That's sweet, but I think we can be pretty sure the results wouldn't match up no matter what tests we do," she grinned. "There's no way the river mud would show the exact same chemical analysis as the original mud used, way back in the sixteenth century. The stable isotopes alone would be completely different, never mind the pollution caused by the industrial revolution..."

"That's only the top layer though, isn't it?" Ezekiel cut in. "If we dug down, we'd get to the sixteenth century stuff."

"You seriously want to dig in that?" Cassandra pointed down at the dark mud. "It's river mud, Ezekiel. Rivers move. Mud gets added, mud gets washed away."

"It's just sitting there. No security, nobody wants it, nobody'll notice if it goes missing..."

"It's mud. You're talking about stealing mud."

"Sixteenth century mud."

"Do you even know how far down you'd have to dig? If there's any point in digging at all of course!"

Ezekiel shrugged and grinned. "Not a clue," he pulled out his phone. "But I know a man who does!"

XXXX

Eve Baird looked around her, admiring the ancient cemetery and its grounds. It was peaceful. There was a service in progress at the synagogue, and she wasn't sure they would have been allowed entry anyway, but the young man who had met them at the door had been more than willing to show them around its exterior, then accompany them over to the old cemetery just a short distance away. He was now happily telling Stone about the famed Maharal and his golem, all while standing just a few feet away from the iconic figure's tomb.

The birds were twittering in the trees, the sun shining through the branches. The sound of traffic was muted by the surrounding buildings. Everything felt enclosed and protected. Sacred, even. There were a few other people in the cemetery. She wondered if they were simply tourists, visiting one of the city's more sombre landmarks, or if they had a connection to someone buried here. There was a young couple, strolling between the gravestones, pointing out a name here and there. An elderly man stood by a grave, taking notes. Half-seen figures moved between the trees and the tombs, each with their individual or collective unknown reasons for being there. None of them, thought Eve, quite as strange as her own.

"Anything useful?" Baird asked, as Stone joined her and the young man disappeared back in the direction of the synagogue.

"Not really," he shook his head. "Everyone round here knows the story, especially in the Jewish community. The Maharal, as he's known, was a local hero, even without the legend being true, apparently. Our friend there confirmed the reports that the synagogue has been searched numerous times and turned up nothing. He even remembers hanging around the film crew that was there in the eighties."

"I can imagine that would be the sort of thing little boys would find fascinating," nodded Eve with a smirk. "Even the adult ones."  
"Either way, we got nothing," said Stone. "I say we make a start on talking to some of the witnesses involved, maybe some of the family of the victims, see if we can't get some leads there."

"You still have the addresses?"

"Turns out I have our entire cloud of data on my phone," he replied with forced cheerfulness. "Which is interesting because I don't recall uploading the particular app that accesses it! Nor do I recall giving my password, or my permission, to anyone else to do the same! Which is even more interesting because the password to get into the app is the same as the password to get into my phone!"

"Well, I guess that's what you get if you work with a thief and don't keep your passwords updated," laughed Eve.

"It's fifteen digits and I change it every week!"

"Okay, that's kind of impressive," she admitted. "And slightly scary and paranoid. Who memorises a new fifteen digit number every week for a phone?"

"Someone who works with Ezekiel Jones," shot back Stone. "And it's only paranoia if you're imagining it! He cracked the thing when it was five digits, then when I increased it to ten. Took him a little while, though. I thought I had him with fifteen and now this!"

"I'll talk to him," said Baird with a shrug. "Although, admittedly, having that information on hand is actually helpful."

"Are you seriously telling me you would be happy with the thief messing with your phone?"

"You don't know..."

"He took a selfie!"


	5. Flowers and Forensics

The hotel lobby was quiet when Stone and Baird got back. It was into the afternoon, past lunch time, and the restaurant was closed to be reset for the dinner service. They'd stopped to eat between interviews, but had heard nothing from Jones and Cassandra save a text saying they would meet them 'back at base' and not to worry if they went quiet for a few hours. It had been two hours since the text and both Baird and Stone were already restless.

"Where the heck are they!" Stone muttered, drumming his fingers against the arm of his chair.

"It's only been a couple of hours," said Baird. "They said they'd be longer than this anyway."

"Try telling that to the carpet you're wearing a trench into!"

"I don't trust Jones not to do something stupid," she replied, sitting down opposite him. "Cassandra wouldn't let him, would she? She has more sense, right?"

"If she thought it would help, and that he could pull it off without incident, she'd let that kid away with anything! And she has a much higher opinion of his chosen superpower than we do."

"Well, thanks for _that_ little pep talk: I feel so much better!"

"I'm going for a walk," Stone growled, getting to his feet. "Take a look around. I can't just sit here."

"You've been sitting there for an hour already!" Baird exclaimed.

"Then I can't just sit here _any more_!" Stone retorted. He stalked off in the direction of the doors and disappeared out into the street.

"Great!" Baird groaned, slumping back in the chair.

XXXX

The street outside the hotel wasn't that busy. It was a working day and, in the slump between lunch hour and closing, most people were back at the office doing their usual nine to five. The idea that he had ever been one of those everyday working masses seemed so distant to Stone now that he couldn't imagine ever going back to it. This was his life now, for better or worse, and there was nothing he could conceive of that would ever make him leave it.

Not even Ezekiel Jones!

His thoughts turned again to wondering what kind of mischief Jones was getting into, dragging Cassandra with him of course. How long would it be before he would have to try and talk them out of a Prague jail cell?

He passed a street vendor selling flowers and stopped. He took a few steps back and looked down at the display. His knowledge of botany wasn't his strongest point, and many of the flowers were unfamiliar, but he was sure he recognised one particular plant. A short discussion with the vendor, and an even shorter transaction, later and he was turned around and heading back to the hotel.

He passed Baird in the lobby without a word and headed up to his room. From there he let himself into Cassandra's room via the dividing door and placed the small bunch of blooms in a glass of water, in the centre of the desk opposite the bed. Leaving by the same route, he headed back down to the lobby just in time to see Cassandra and Jones shaking Baird awake.

"So what's the mystery?" Stone asked, joining the group.

"It's not the same clay," replied Cassandra, sitting down in the chair he had been inhabiting barely half an hour earlier. "Whatever is attacking our victims, it isn't the golem Rabbi Loew created in the sixteenth century."

"No need to head back to the synagogue, then," sighed Baird. "Oh well, back to the drawing board. Did you find out anything useful?"

"Oh, it's a golem alright," cut in Jones, now seated next to his latest partner in crime. "Just not the one the rabbi made five centuries ago."

"What do you mean?" Stone frowned.

"We checked the samples against clay mud from the river. We used a sample from the top and then one from deep enough to be sixteenth century, on that side of the current anyway. We checked the date by comparing them to each other, then we compared the deep one to the samples the cops had. It didn't match, but Cassandra noticed a few things and so we checked it against the top sample. It did."

"Somebody's made _another_ golem?" Baird groaned.

"How exactly did you manage to compare the samples to the police ones?" Stone wondered aloud, watching Jones with suspicion aforethought.

"You know, we should probably discuss this somewhere a little less open," suggested Jones.

"What did you do?" Baird asked, getting to her feet and glaring down at the two miscreants.

"We really should go upstairs," agreed Cassandra. "We can't really sit here and compare notes on golems. Anyone could be listening."

"Fine," said Baird. "Your room, madam. Now!"

XXXX

"Hey!" Jones cried out as he followed the others into Cassandra's room. "My room's nowhere near this good!"

"We got the last four rooms, Jones," said Baird, dropping down into the one chair in the corner. "Deal with it."

"This room's so much better than mine," he continued, browsing around the room. "Double bed. Bath _and_ shower. Huge dressing table. Flowers. Big old wardrobe. What's this door? A cupboard?"

He opened the door before anyone could reply and stuck his head through into the other room. When he stepped back, his expression was thoughtful. Jacob didn't notice. He was too busy watching Cassandra looking down at the flowers on the table.

"Since you're over there, why don't you bring the chair through from Stone's room," called Baird.

Cassandra's hand froze on its way to the flowers, and fell to her side. She turned, her eyes glancing up to meet Jacob's for a moment, then leant back against the table. Ezekiel returned with a chair identical to the one Baird was seated in and set it down, collapsing into it quietly. Cassandra walked over and hopped up on the bed, curling her legs round under her. Stone stayed standing, now engrossed in the pattern of the carpet.

"Okay, now we're all sitting comfortably," coaxed Baird, "will someone please tell me which government or law enforcement agency's tail we've been pulling today?"

"Nobody knows we were there, I swear," said Jones, raising his hands. "We just borrowed it for a little while."

"It was the only way to do the chemical analyses," added Cassandra, shrugging one shoulder with an apologetic smile. "We'd never have found out we're looking for a new golem otherwise."

"You stole a chemical laboratory?" Baird's voice went up an octave. "An entire laboratory?"

"Borrowed," Jones corrected her. "Only borrowed. And it is paid for with public funds. Technically, you could say it is owned by the tax payers."

"When have you ever paid tax, Jones?"

"Cassandra pays tax," the thief grinned.

"Not in this country!"

"Did you guys find anything useful?" Cassandra asked, eager to change the subject.

"All the victims had a few things in common," shrugged Stone without looking up. "Same general community, same local bar, same shops. Two of them worked for the same company. Two of them played on the same bowling team, but not the two who worked together. Different lifestyles though, different pay grades. Different histories too. Three different high schools. One of them not even in Prague. All different beliefs. None of them Jewish. In fact, none of them had been having any particular problems, as far as we can tell. Not with anything or anyone."

"So were they bad guys or good guys?" Jones asked.

"What difference does that make?" Stone replied. "They're dead guys. Usually the guy who made them that way is the bad guy."

"It might give us a clue as to why they were killed," said Cassandra quietly. "Or who's going to be next. The original golem was built by a holy man to protect his people from their 'bad guys'. If the new one is following the same pattern..."

"Then we will need to go back to the synagogue," finished Baird. "Great."

"Just because the first golem was built by a good guy to take down bad guys, doesn't mean this golem was made the same way," mused Stone. "The main job of the golem then was protection. Bad guys need protection too. Sure would be difficult to fight a bodyguard that refused to die when you shot him."

"Okay, we need to know more about our victims," said Baird. "Jones, what do you need to hack their lives?"

"My phone, decent wi-fi and access to a printer," was the prompt reply.

"The hotel lobby should have all of those," she nodded, standing up. "Come on. And no hacking anything else. I'll be watching."

"Allegedly," he muttered, and followed her out of the room.

The door to the hall swung closed behind them and Stone turned towards the dividing one to his own room.

"Why did you buy me flowers?" Cassandra piped up before he could take two steps. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"I..." Jacob stuttered, then turned to face her and started again. "I saw them and they reminded me of you. So I bought them."

Cassandra looked over at the flowers and looked puzzled. "How..."

"The flower, it's called the saffron crocus," he leant back against the table opposite her. "The stamen of the plant is what makes the spice saffron. It can be used in stains and dyes as much as in food though. It's one of those odd plants that has two meanings in the old Victorian language of the flowers, depending on what part of the plant you give your... Depending on what part of the plant you're talking about. The flower means 'mirth'. And that's you. You are always smiling. Especially lately. But I can't help wondering how much that smile is hiding, Cassie. Just like the petals of the flower hide the saffron inside. You're doing too much, and it's making you worse. The flower might be mirth on the outside, but on the inside, the saffron means 'beware of excess'. You need to be careful. You're here doing this job, and it ain't easy. You're making your own ley line maps. You're on who knows how much medication! I saw it in the drawer there last night. I went looking for a tissue to catch the blood before it really got going and I saw it all."

"Are you finished?" Cassandra's eyebrows had slowly crept up her forehead as he spoke. He winced at her tone and nodded. "I'm dying, Stone. I have a tumour and it's killing me. Of course I'm on a lot of medication. I've been on a lot of medication for years. Half of it is just to control the side effects of the other half! That doesn't mean I need to slow down, it means I need to speed up! I only have a limited time to do this. To help fix the problem I caused. If I can do that, if I can fix that much before I die, then maybe that will go some way towards making up for what I did."

"You have nothing to make up for," he sighed wearily. "Not any more. Do you have any idea how many lives you've saved? I don't want the cost of that to be your own! I don't want to watch you drive yourself into the ground trying to do everything at once. I don't want to watch you die."

"Better me than some innocent with their whole life ahead of them!"

"Better neither!" Jacob's voice rose. "Don't say stuff like that!"

"Or what?" Cassandra spat back. "You'll tell me off? Tell me how I _should_ be living my life? Walk away? I got enough of that from my parents. I really don't need it from _you_!"

"Oh, I'll be here, whatever you choose to do. I don't walk out on my friends that easy. But I ain't gonna stand here in silence and watch you kill yourself either. You do what you like," he growled. "Just know I will be doing anything I can to make that burden on you lighter. No matter how much you try to weight yourself down!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

And the dividing door slammed behind him.


	6. A Blast from the Past

Jacob Stone was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling when his hotel room phone rang. Already irritated, with himself as much as anything else, he considered ignoring it. It wouldn't be her though. Confrontations on the phone were not Cassandra's style. If she had something to say to you, she said it to your face. He lifted the receiver and answered it.

"Stone, we've got a lead," buzzed Baird's voice from the other end of the line. "Get down here."

"Want me to grab Cassandra?" Stone replied.

"I called her room first," came the matter-of-fact answer. "Can't think why but I thought you'd still be there. She's on her way down, already. Asked me to call you. Why?"

"Minor disagreement," grumbled Stone. "Nothing to worry about."

"Didn't sound that minor," said Baird. "Now get down here, pronto!"

By the time he reached the lobby, the other three were waiting by the door. Cassandra was looking out the window. She had her back to him, and didn't turn round even when he asked Baird what they'd found.

"We found a link. Here," Baird handed him a printout. "All the victims knew this guy, and they all owed him money."

"A loan shark?"

"Looks like," she nodded. "And we think we know who the next victim is too. Jones managed to get a copy of his smart phone and he found a file with names and numbers. Who owed what, what interest, due dates. All that sort of stuff. It was quite well hidden too."

"All our dead guys were on the list," Jones chipped in. "All of them had payments due the day before they died. The next person on the list had a payment due yesterday."

"So who are we looking for?"

Baird tapped the screen of Jones' phone and showed him the picture.

"That's the guy we spoke to this morning!" Stone's eyes shot up. "We gotta get over there!"

"The cab is on its way," soothed Baird. "It'll be faster than walking. It should be here soon."

"Here it is," said Jones.

They all piled into the car, this time with Cassandra grabbing the front seat faster than anyone could move. The journey was short and uncomfortable. Even Jones picked up on the uneasy silence between Stone and Cassandra. Baird attempted to start a conversation, but grunted or monosyllabic answers put a dampener on it from the start. Eventually she gave up. They pulled up to the synagogue and fled the car. This time there was no service in progress and they were allowed entry to part of the building. They were shown to a small office with the name Ben Cohen engraved on the plaque. It was the name of the young man they had spoken to that morning. Stone knocked. The door opened.

"Mr Stone," said Ben, "and friends I assume. Please come in."

They trooped inside the office and the door closed behind them. Ben walked over to the desk and shuffled some papers into a neat pile, then shut them away in a drawer.

"What can I do for you?" Ben asked in halting English. "You would like to see around the synagogue?"

"Actually we came to talk to you," said Baird, holding out her phone to him, a picture on its screen. "We have reason to believe you know this man."

The young man sat down. "How...?"

"We have our methods," she told him simply. "We believe he is involved in the three murders that have taken place here recently. And we think you are next on the list."

He dropped his head into his hands.

"You owe him a lot of money!" Jones cut in. "And yet you've already had an extension on that. Those guys who died owed him less, and they didn't get one. How did you?"

He started sobbing.

"You made the golem, didn't you," said Stone. "You're a Cohen. An ancient lineage of Jews, thought by some to have greater powers than the average mortal man."

"And your extension started just two days before the first murder," added Cassandra. "You made the golem for him as part of your payment. It's killed three people already. Now it's coming to kill you."

"How do we kill it?" Baird asked.

"You cannot," sobbed Ben. "Victor Laszlo is not a stupid man. He knows the story of the Maharal and his golem. He knows how easy it would be to change a single letter of a chem written on the monster's forehead. He had me inscribe the chem on a piece of metal, a gold medallion, and insert that into the golem's head instead."

"So we need to destroy the metal?" Baird asked. Ben nodded.

"Gold is unreactive and easily malleable," said Cassandra. "It would be perfect for writing on if you didn't want that writing to erode chemically, and if you were sure nothing was going to erode it physically. It will melt though, like all metals, if you heat it enough."

"Anyone know of any handy furnaces nearby?" Baird asked the room in general.

"We might have a plan," said Jones, looking over at Cassandra. "We had a bit of spare time while the machines were doing their thing in the lab earlier..."

"What did you do?" Baird groaned.

Cassandra fished around in her purse for a moment and retrieved a plastic bag containing a small cylinder of what looked like clay covered in greaseproof paper. "We had some clay left over and the rest of the ingredients were just lying around in the lab..."

"Oh, you did not make what I think you made!" Baird looked at her aghast. "Do not tell me you have been carrying around a stick of home-made dynamite in your purse! Do you know how dangerous that is?"

"It's perfectly safe without a blasting cap and fuse," she shrugged. "Ezekiel has them and we can put it together in no time."

"And do what? Feed it to the golem?" Baird asked. "Do you even know how long whatever fuse you've got will burn?"

"I've used my fair share of fuse wires, Colonel," admitted Jones. "I can set it up fairly accurately, then yeah: why not try and persuade the golem to eat it? Shoving a stick of dynamite down its throat is as good a way to obliterate it as any!"

"Yes, it and anyone else nearby!" Baird told him.

"Do we have a better idea?" Stone asked the rest of the room. "Unless this place has a furnace we can lure it into, I don't see how we have any other options."

"We still have time to come up with something," sighed Baird, still staring at the plastic bag in Cassandra's hand.

"Not really," said Stone, turning her to look out the window. "Does that guy seem out of place to you?"

In the grounds of the synagogue there was a sole figure walking towards them. He was at least seven or eight feet tall, broad and blocky, and with deeply tanned skin and a shaved head. Ben looked out of the window.

"That's him," he nodded. "He's coming for me. Once he has been told to find me, he'll know exactly where I am."

"Do you have anything like a furnace here?" Baird asked him.

"We have a small one, for the boiler, down in the basement," replied Ben, "but he won't fit in it."

"We just need to fit his head in it," she told him. "Take us there. Cassandra, Jones: get our backup plan ready as we go."

They hurried out of the office and down to the basement. It extended outwards beyond the foundations of the synagogue, as well as filling the area below the main part of the building with tunnels and storerooms. The boiler was off to one side in one of the larger rooms.

"Dynamite's ready," said Cassandra.

"How long do you want the fuse?" Jones asked.

"Ten seconds should do," replied Baird. "That should give us time to get to the stairs at least before the blast.

Jones counted out the fuse wire and cut it. He handed the stick to Baird.

"Surely I should have that," suggested Ben. "It is me it wants, after all."

"You distract it. I'll kill it," said Baird. "Now you three get out of here."

"No way! You can't take this thing down on your own!" Jones exclaimed.

"I can with this," she raised the stick, "and I'd rather not risk all of us if we can't get away."

"Yeah, we ain't getting away," said Stone, looking past her to the stairs. The golem had found them.

"Go. I'll do this myself," Ben tried to persuade them. "It doesn't want you!"

"We're staying now," sighed Cassandra. "It's blocking our exit."

The golem broke into a run, and everything after that was a blur. Jones was brushed out of the way like a feather in a draught. Baird at least managed to slow it down a bit with a few bullets to the head. None of them managed to hit the chem apparently, as the monster bore down on her and knocked her out. Cassandra was pushed out of the golem's path and she landed on the opposite side of the room from Baird and Jones. She could see the thief hurry over to the Colonel just as she came round.

"Get her out of here!" Cassandra yelled to Jones, getting to her feet. Jones nodded in reply and hustled the dazed Colonel out of the room and to the stairs.

Cassandra looked round for the golem. It had it's arms around Ben's torso and was squeezing. An image of the human skeleton sprang into life before her. She zoomed in on the ribs and calculated the pressure needed to crack them and fatally puncture the lungs. He didn't have long. As she tried to bring the visions back under control, she was vaguely aware of Stone grabbing the golem's neck and throwing the lit dynamite into its mouth. There was a shout of "run" and the two men went hurtling past her while the golem clawed at it's throat. She heard Stone curse loudly then felt two arms grab her and lift her off her feet, carrying her towards the safety of the stairs. She saw the light of the blast behind them fill the air moments before everything went black.


	7. Chapter 7

Cassandra came round first. She blinked, but no light came to the aid of her eyes. She could feel the rubble all around her, propped up on support beams that had collided just enough to save her. To save them. There were arms around her and someone beside her. Familiar arms. She reached up and traced the outline of Jacob's face. Amidst the dust and dirt from the explosion, there was blood winding its way down his forehead. She felt panic rise.

"Don't be dead," she whispered. "Please don't be dead!"

"I'm not dead," groaned the reply. "I don't think I'd be hurting this much if I was!"

"Why the blazes did you come back for me?" Cassandra hissed at him. "You could have been killed!"

"You would have been if I hadn't!"

"And now we're both trapped! Do you have any idea how little oxygen there is in a space this small?"

"Don't tell me," he groaned. "Please!"

"At least Colonel Baird and Ezekiel got out," she sighed, letting her head fall forward onto his chest. "They'll get us out."

"Here's hoping," he murmured.

XXXX

It took half an hour of solid digging before the first glimmer of light shone through the rubble. Another half hour later and they were on their way to the hospital to be checked out. Two hours later and they were on their way back to the hotel in Ben Cohen's car, with a dressing on Stone's forehead and both of them in sore need of a change of clothes.

"We're not done," Baird told them as Ben drove. "To stop Ben from making any more golems to fight the one he'd made for Lazslo, Laszlo took the book Ben used. It was written by the Maharal himself. We need to get it and keep it from falling into the wrong hands again."

"How do we do that?" Stone asked, removing the wound dressing.

"He has a secret hideout," commented Jones. "Where he keeps all his ill gotten gains."

"Do we know where?" Cassandra asked.

"Wouldn't be very secret if we did," shrugged Jones.

"We know, from what Ben has told us, that the only people he takes there are his trusted henchmen, people who are not usually heard of again, and women he's trying to impress."

"He has a weakness," nodded Stone. "So you're going to try and be one of those women, then get the book and get out?"

"Actually I can't," Baird admitted, looking over at Cassandra apologetically. "I've run into Laszlo before, on NATO business. He knows my face."

"No!" Stone shook his head, then winced. "You cannot seriously be suggesting we use Cassandra as bait! She's just out of the hospital!"

"Where the only one of us with any damage was you," Cassandra reminded him. She looked back to Baird. "We need to get that book. What do I have to do?"

XXXX

"I don't like this," grumbled Stone into Baird's ear. The noise in the club was typically loud. That was bad enough. Nobody in the building looked the kind of person he would happily have a drink with back home. That was worse. The worst thing, however, was the small group of men he had been watching for the past hour before Baird joined him. There were at least four bodyguards surrounding Laszlo, that he could see. Jones was supposed to be helping, but Jones was nowhere to be found.

"She'll be fine," Baird reassured him, leaning on the bannister of the club's upper floor and looking down into the crowd below. "Look there she is."

"Where?" Stone followed Baird's gaze. Walking down the spiral stairs on the opposite side of the club was Cassandra, wearing a completely different kind of dress and not much of that. A dig in the ribs told him he'd been staring. "Where the heck did you find that outfit!"

"We're girls, Stone: shopping is one of our superpowers," she looked round again. "You're still staring."

"It would be easy to lose her in this crowd, we should really keep our eyes on her all the time."

"That much I grant you, just try and stop catching flies while you watch her."

He shut his mouth and leant against the bannister beside her. His eyes followed Cassandra's red hair through the crowd to the bar. She found the group he'd been watching easily. They'd taken over that end of the bar and there was a clear area around them. She picked her way into the empty part of the bar and somehow got the barman's attention. She got the group's attention too, and Jacob watched their target brush his bodyguards away to go to Cassandra's side. When the barman returned with her drink, he said something to him and the man went away without asking for any payment.

The uneasy feeling in Jacob's stomach grew as he watched them talking. She was seated on a bar stool now, another drink in hand, laughing at what he assumed were Laszlo's jokes. A hand went out to brush a red curl back into place and he felt his own hands tighten on the bannister.

"Easy," said Baird, looking over at his white knuckles. "She'll be fine."

"If they move, we'll lose them before we get downstairs," he replied. "If anything happens to her..."

"If you hadn't been so busy watching Cassandra, you'd see Jones talking to that brunette about four feet away. He won't lose her."

"Oh, yeah, 'cause he'll be so much use against that lot!"

"He can follow them without being spotted. You can't. They already know me."

"What if they do spot him?"

"He just needs to follow them to wherever the book is. We catch up with him and get Cassandra out, creating the distraction he needs to get the book," Baird replied, reiterating the plan for what, by now, felt like the hundredth time.

"I still don't like..." Stone's voice trailed off as he froze, his eyes no longer on Cassandra.

"What?" Baird straightened and followed his gaze.

"I swear that guy just put something in her drink."

"Okay, that's not good."

"I'm getting her out of there."

"I should..."

"Like you said: he knows you," said Stone, raising a hand to stop her. "You keep an eye on them from up here and let me know if they move."

"No bar brawls!" Baird called after him.

"For once I have a better idea!"

It took him longer than he'd have liked to descend the stairs and make his way across the dance floor to the bar. When he reached the group huddled around their boss and Cassandra she was already halfway through the spiked drink.

"Hey, darlin', time to go!" Stone yelled over the noise of the club, pushing through the knot of bodyguards.

"I haven't finished my drink," she pointed out.

"You've had plenty!" Stone lifted the glass out of her hand and slid it across the bar. It toppled over the edge and hit the ground with a faint smash. "Now it's time I got you home."

"Who," asked the immaculately suited man by her side with a sneer, "are you?" 

"Get out of my way, friend," he warned. "This is between me and my drunk wife."

"Your..."

Before he could finish his thought, Stone had reached out and grabbed Cassandra's wrist, dragging her towards him. A hand shot out from one of Laszlo's bodyguards to grab her back and he caught it in his own.

"Touch her and I'll break every bone in your hand," he growled, tightening his grip on the offending article. With some difficulty, the hand receded.

He pulled her towards him again and she collided with him on shaky legs. Automatically wrapping an arm around her waist, they exchanged a look. What's going on? Go with it. Start a fight. "You're coming with me," he said loudly. "And don't even think about ordering another drink! Look at you! You can barely stand! You're bad enough sober right now without adding another reason to fall over!" That did the trick. She slapped him.

"I don't have to go anywhere with you!" Cassandra yelled, attempting to push herself away from him.

"Like hell you don't!" Stone yelled back. "One argument and you take your ring off, go spend a ton of money on a dress you'll never wear again and start getting drunk and picking up strangers in bars! If it was just you, I'd say fine, but that's my money you're spending and nobody in you're condition should be getting that drunk!"

"Just because I'm carrying your child doesn't mean you own me!"

Stone blinked. That wasn't the condition he'd meant, but never mind. "You're my wife and I love you. Isn't that enough?"

All at once, her arms were round his neck and her lips were on his. If he hadn't already had his arms around her to stop her falling over, he wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't have given the game away by flailing about like an idiot. He pulled her closer and tried to remember it was all an act. Her teeth tugged on his lower lip and he pulled away.

"Honey, we have an audience," he reminded her, glancing over at the group of men behind her. They had already backed off.

"So take me home, lover," she replied, and he was sure nobody would have heard her but himself.

Lifting her into his arms, he carried her out of the club and into a taxi at the rank outside. Once they were safely on their way, and a text sent to Jones and Baird to say so, he turned to Cassandra.

"We ever have to pull a stunt like that again, please don't do that!"

"Do what?" Cassandra giggled. "You started it!"

"You know exactly what! You really are drunk! What the heck were you drinking in there? You know he spiked it at least once?"

"No I didn't," she sobered a little, but not much. "It was vodka and tonic. I thought it would, I don't know, blend in. I know I was drinking a little too fast but..."

"A little? He probably had the barman putting extra shots in your drink too!"

"I'm okay," she assured him.

"You can barely stand," he reminded her.

"Well, pardon me, I'm not exactly used to seducing gangsters in foreign bars."

"He's a loan shark, not a gangster, and you..."

"What?" Cassandra looked round at him. "And I what?"

"Never mind," he said, with a wave of his hand. "Ancient history now."

They reached the hotel and he had to help her out of the car and into the lobby. Her footing was still incoherent and her balance shot. "Come here," he sighed. "You are never gonna make it up those stairs like that."

When they reached the small corridor their rooms inhabited, he put her down again, propping her up against the wall while he opened her door.

"How do women find anything in these damn tiny purses?" Stone muttered, retrieving the key and shepherding her inside. "Right, you. In there, get changed, go to bed. I will be next door if you need me."

"I think I'll just get changed in the morning," slurred Cassandra, sitting down on the bed and kicking off her heels. She dragged the blanket over her and fell back onto the pillows, asleep already.

"Really?" Stone sighed. He went and found the bucket and put it at her side of the bed. With a murmured apology, he rolled her over onto her side, near the edge of the bed where the bucket lay. She rolled back. He rolled her onto her side again and put a pillow at her back. She tried to roll back, found the pillow, grabbed it and threw it away.

"Dammit, woman!" Stone muttered when she threw away a second, then a third pillow. "You cannot sleep on your back with God knows what in your system!" He sighed and ran a hand over his forehead. "To hell with it!" He kicked his shoes off and climbed up onto the bed beside her, rolling her away from him, back onto her side facing the bucket. "Try throwing me away, I dare ya."

"You're really sexy when you're jealous," she muttered, and he could swear he heard a grin in her voice.

"And you are really, really drunk. Go to sleep," he ordered, trying hard to keep the grin out of his.

XXXX

The next morning, Stone woke early with his arms still wrapped around a sleeping Cassandra. He checked her pulse. It was normal. Well, normal for her anyway. He kissed her head and headed back through to his own room. There was a message on his phone from Baird to say they got the book and everything went without a hitch. He left the dividing door ajar and went to bed properly for another few hours. He was woken by the sound of his phone.

"Hey," he mumbled. "I saw you got the book."

"Jones has it," replied Baird. "We're downstairs demolishing the breakfast buffet again. Care to join us?"

"I'll be right down."

"How's Cassandra?"

"She's sleeping it off, or she was when I left her. She'll be fine."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I stayed with her until the danger had passed."

"I think I'll take first shift on the driving today then."

"Driving?"

"Slovakia, remember?"

"Right, yeah, of course."

"So get down here and get a good breakfast before Jones finishes it."

He put the phone down and headed for the en suite. When he was dressed, he knocked on the dividing door and stuck his head through.

"You alive in there?"

"My head hurts!"

He walked through and knelt down by the bed.

"How much do you remember about last night?" Stone asked.

"Enough to know I should remember more," Cassandra groaned. "What happened?"

"They drugged you. I brought you home. Baird and Jones went after Laszlo and got the book."

"I didn't say or do anything..."

"You were under the influence of alcohol and something definitely not alcohol, I think we can safely say you did and said a lot of things, none of which matter in the slightest."

"Such as?"

"Well, you get really giggly when you're drunk."

"That's not all is it?" Cassandra's eyes narrowed. "What did I do?" She focussed past him and spotted the pillows on the floor. "Why...?"

Stone looked round and saw what she was looking at. "Oh those. You don't like sleeping on your side, apparently."

"Then how come I'm..." She stopped, her eyes flitting back to his face, now no longer meeting her gaze. "You stayed, didn't you."

"If I was out of line in doing so, I apologise," he replied, looking up, "but I couldn't see any other way of keeping you safe."

Cassandra's eyes seemed to search his own for a moment, then she sat up, swinging her legs down off the bed.

"I ought to get changed," she said. "What time is it?"

"Just after eight," he replied, standing up and offering her a hand to do the same. She ignored it. "Baird called. She and Jones are downstairs."

"I'll be fine. You can go join them," murmured Cassandra, getting up unaided and walking over to the wardrobe.

"Are you sure?"

"I don't need my own personal bodyguard, Stone!" Cassandra snapped. "You don't have to keep rescuing me!"

"If you are in trouble I am always going to keep rescuing you!" Jacob retorted. "We're part of a team, Cassie. That's what people in a team do: they look out for each other. That's what friends do!"

"We are hardly that!" Cassandra sighed, not quite quietly enough that he didn't hear her.

"Since when?" Stone demanded. "We spend almost all our time together. We work together. We socialise together. We understand each other, or at least I thought we did!"

"We don't trust each other, though, do we?" Cassandra shot back. "How can you really be someone's friend if you don't trust them, Jacob? I get how you can be that way with family. I have family issues of my own. I just don't understand how you think you're my friend when you keep proving you don't trust my judgement!"

"I've never said..."

"You don't have to!"

He walked over to the wardrobe and turned her to face him. "If I have concerns about you, about how you live your life, it's because I care! Jones drags you into his mad ploys. Baird has her hands full dealing with him. Somebody has to be responsible for looking after you."

This time the slap was very definitely real.

"Don't you DARE play that card again!" Cassandra raged, pushing him away. "I should have slapped that pretentious, self-righteous, arrogant smirk off your face the first time, way back in that labyrinth. You think you're the only person capable of being responsible? I worked as a janitor just to pay the rent on my apartment back in New York. I worked there for years. I took care of myself. I didn't have to answer to you, or my parents, or Baird, or anyone but myself and I did fine! I do not need looking after!"

"I didn't mean..."

"Get out! I want to get changed."

He backed away, hands raised, and closed the door behind him. There was a click as the bolt shot back into place and the door was locked.

Breakfast was nearly over when Cassandra joined the other three in the hotel restaurant. She ate quickly and quietly, answering Baird's inquiries after her health with the age old misnomer "I'm fine". The manager had arranged a picnic basket for them for their journey, at Baird's request, and had arranged for a hire car to get them as far as the Slovakian border. They would have to change cars there, but he knew somewhere they could do that, and apparently the two companies were used to working together in similar circumstances. They would drop off the hire car at the Czech company's offices in Uhersky Brod. A driver would take them as far as the Slovakian border. They would meet another driver from the Slovakian company who would then take them to Trencin to pick up a new hire car from their offices.

When the time came to leave, Baird met Stone and Cassandra in the lobby with her bag. Jones was still making his way down the stairs. She looked from one to the other of them, noting the sullen silence.

"Let's get these bags in the car," she murmured thoughtfully. "You two seem awfully quiet. Everything okay?"

"We're good." They chorused.

"Hmm," she picked up the extra bag with the maps and headed out the door.

"We're not good," Cassandra said quietly as the door swung closed behind the Colonel.

"No, we're not," agreed Stone. "And we won't be for a while."

"I'll be sure to let you know when that is," she holding the door open for him.

"That ain't a one way thing," he told her. "We're both angry here."

"Then maybe you'll consider letting me know when you've climbed down from that high horse of yours!"

"Maybe I will!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"


End file.
